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“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
One day, they were old.
Last week, Bucky had called him and said, “Darling, don’t laugh, but I think I forgot where I parked the damn car.”
If the pressure in his chest was his funny bone being tickled, Steve didn’t laugh. Over the last year, Bucky losing his phone and keys, missing meetings and double booking himself had become an everyday occurrence. How they didn’t officially start their day until they had turned the house upside down in search for whatever Bucky had misplaced the day before. When Steve looked back, trying to pinpoint the exact day Bucky started asking the same questions again and again as if the answer had gone through one ear and left through the other, Steve honestly couldn’t tell. It had been like the wind changing direction and not like the phone call, which had been nothing less than a complete sucker punch.
As Steve had tried to make things easier for Bucky, he told himself a lot of things. When he had attached the clumsy Captain America keychain to Bucky’s keys, he told himself that Bucky had a thousand things happening around him all at once. When he put the dinging sound on the agenda app on Bucky’s phone so that it would be loud enough to raise the dead, he told himself that Bucky was exhausted; weathered to the bone. That the black etched beneath his eyes and the sunken-in features of his cheeks were caused by last year’s rollercoaster.
One week later, and Steve hoped that five weeks’ worth of sun, umbrella drinks and midday swims would wash all that away. After everything the world had tossed at them, they were both tattered and worn around the edges. To the naked eye, Bucky more than Steve. But again, Steve told himself a lot of things. That Bucky had been awake longer, endured more; that you saw the grey streaks in Bucky’s dark hair easier than in his own blond.
If he dimmed the lights on the bed stand at night, he didn’t have to see that Bucky’s five o’clock shadow was barely a shadow anymore. If he focused on the curve of Bucky’s lips as he smiled or the glimmer in his blue eyes when he got excited and happy, Steve didn’t have to see how every ounce of youth was washed away from his features. If he focused on today and not tomorrow, he didn’t have to dwell on the fact that Bucky was old and only growing older.
Much like their little bees.
Their son babbled happily in Steve’s lap, one tiny hand squeezing the life out of the stuffed bunny. He looked up at Steve with big saucers for eyes, looking seemingly perplexed before he flashed a wide, toothless smile.
Steve picked him up in his arms, earning a happy glee. “What’s so funny, you goof?”
The little guy fawned at the attention, tilting his head to the side in a bashful manner, wide smile breaking out into a shy giggle. Steve couldn’t help but chuckle with him as he shook his head.
Babies, he would never understand them and yet despite that, they went through all the paperwork to get two.
At the end of 1944, he had thought a lot about this. About how much he wanted a family of his own; of how he wanted to provide and protect; to love and be loved back. A century later, in another time and with another love, and he had everything he had wished for back then. Someone to wake up to every morning, somewhere to call home and kids. They even had a dog.
As scary as the future had been when he first woke up, Peggy had been right. There wasn’t a day that went by that Steve didn’t think about her; not about what had once been or what could have been, but about what she had said. That sometimes, starting over was the best thing they could do. As intimidating and lonely and hopeless square one had been, Steve felt blessed to have had someone with him to rediscover the world; to start over with someone who needed to start over as well. Ground zero, together.
“But Dad, you said the same thing last week!”
In unison, they turned their heads toward the shoreline. Their daughter stomped her feet as she walked over, sending sand up on the dotted beach blanket. Despite the ice in her eyes, she was all fire. Bucky followed, steps low and heavy in the hot sand. His stars and stripes patterned bathing shorts dry. It was an odd match with the Hawaii shirt.
“And then you just forgot, again!” she fussed, snatching a pink towel from the bag to dry herself off. Steve quirked an eyebrow, watching as Bucky deflated with the sigh that escaped past his chapped lips.
“I won’t forget this time,” Bucky said as lowered himself down onto the blanket next to Steve in the shade, movements crisp and slow. Bucky pushed up his sunglasses that had skidded down his glossy nose, face turning up toward her. “I promise, cupcake. Now come and sit down, I think we should start thinking about dinner.”
He reached out for her, hand closing around her balled fist. Defused but not defeated, she plonked down beside him on the picnic blanket, tiny arms crossed over her chest, lips pouting.
Since Christmas, Bucky had promised that they would go to Disneyland, always saying that they would go next weekend. He had said that for two months straight and deserved all the wrath their five-year-old could muster. Tony Stark, having babysat her once, had said that she had both the will and capability to run Stark Industries right now if they weren’t too fussy about her getting a degree, quoting: “She’s like Pepper, brilliant and utterly terrifying and with a potty mouth. Who taught her to swear like a sailor? Wait. Don’t answer that. I want to hire her.”
“I’m going to sell you for tickets if you forget again,” she grumbled sourly, pulling the towel closer around her small frame.
“Sell me?” Bucky snorted, wide grin stretching from ear to ear. He laid his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close, kissing her forehead. Her dark hair was tousled. The smile he wore colored his voice, warm and gentle. “I don’t think anyone would buy me, sweetpea, I’m too old and shaggy.”
“Papa would.”
She looked him dead in the eye and Steve grinned guilty as sin. “How much do you want for him?”
“Sixty dollars,” she said, raising her chin high. “And ice cream every day until we go home.”
Steve suppressed an all too impressed smile, failing horribly and nodded once. “Deal. Anything I should know before I bring him home?”
“He both snores and farts in his sleep just so you know,” she said, nose wrinkling. “It’s horrible.”
“Tsk-tsk, you’re not a very good merchant, are you?” Bucky mused, earning himself an elbow to the side. His full body flinched cracked the stern façade on their angry little bee and together they shared a good laugh.
In the distance, the sound of barking joined up with the quiet lapping of the sea. They all turned their heads, gazing off into the sparkling shoreline. Before they knew it, their daughter shot up like a rocket.
“Sparks found something!” she shouted eagerly and then she was off, sand shooting backwards and up onto the blanket as she ran after the equally energetic terrier, leaving only the pink towel in her wake.
“Don’t go close to the water without telling!” Bucky called after her. He was shaking his head as he turned to Steve, sighed and said, “She’s going to win Olympic medals if she wants to run track.”
Steve felt the smile grow on his face and nodded softly. In his lap, their son did a pleased gurgled sound, obviously agreeing as well.
Bucky glanced down at their youngster and huffed a smile, reached over with his hand – his only hand – to pull down their son’s boonie hat over the long, blond locks framing his face.
Last month, the arm had come off. Like Bucky, it had been old and only growing older, shortcutting on a weekly basis. It was still coming back after a generous Stark overhaul and in the meantime, Steve found himself looking at someone who was strikingly similar to the man before the war. All dark, wavy hair and lips more often curled than not.
Despite the lack of metal, Bucky shined in a way he hadn’t done in a long time.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Bucky’s voice dragged him back to the present. Steve watched as he took off his Ray-Bans, blue eyes illuminating from all the light, even in the shade of the beach umbrella. This was their third day abroad and Steve couldn’t tell if it was the red tan that had worked miracles on the dark half-moons beneath Bucky’s eyes, or if he should credit all the late mornings.
Steve averted his eyes and shook his head, smiling. “Just thinking.”
“About?” Bucky asked, reaching for the tube of sunscreen in the beach bag. He clicked open the cap, squeezed out a small blob just above his kneecap, put the tube away and collected the lotion onto his fingers. He dragged a solid line down his red, glistening nose, then left and right over his cheeks, like war paint.
It wasn’t until their son squealed in unknown delight that Steve realized he’d been staring again, the silence long and tangible between them. He hugged their baby closer to his chest. “About how much I love you.”
Bucky stopped with his hand mid-air, looked him in the eye and smiled with his lips, eyes and soul all at once. “I love you too.”
“I know you do,” Steve reassured gently, feeling the way his heart pounded against his ribs. When he heard Sparks bark, he snapped his gaze over to their dog and daughter, seeing how they were digging like fools in the sand just a stone throw away. When he looked back at Bucky, their eyes locked again. The streak of lotion on his right cheek was rubbed in, skin white and glistening.
“I’ll always love you,” Bucky promised with that calm, husky voice of his; head cocking to the side. His smile was earnest, modest in a way as if he knew all about Steve’s worries. There was a spark in his eyes, something warm and familiar. “You might have to knock me over a few times, but I’ll always remember, in the end.”
If Bucky had survived seventy-years of systematic torture and brainwashing, Steve liked to think that he would survive growing old as well.
“I know,” Steve said and hesitated for a moment, the smile on his lips dying down. Hearing Bucky being sweet should untie the knot in his chest, but it didn’t and for that, Steve hated the tinge of desperation that tainted his words. “Promise me you’ll always remember that I love you too.”
Sitting side by side, faces turned toward each other, Steve was in Bucky’s orbit and he could practically feel the vibrations in the air as Bucky hummed when he leaned closer, their noses rubbing together, sun lotion transferring onto Steve. He felt the faint brush of Bucky’s lips curling against his own, warm and soft and gentle; he felt the rough edges of Bucky’s hand grasping his own, sticky fingers swiping over the gold wedding band.
“What do I always tell you?” Bucky’s breath was hot against his lips. The skin on Steve’s arm pebbled, his heart thundered in his ears, his head filling with the smell of Bucky by each breath. He smelled of the sea.
“’til the end of the line,” Steve echoed right before he leaned closer, pressing their lips so close together that they were almost touching—
—and then Bucky huffed an amused breath and leaned back all smug looking. Steve felt the valleys form between his brows as he watched how Bucky arched a curious eyebrow to match that grin of his.
“’til the end of the line, pal,” he mended as he raised his hand toward Steve’s face, index finger smoothing out the wrinkle between his brows, only to follow the bumpy slope of his nose, distributing the sun lotion. The look he gave Steve was nothing else but the comic statement of now which one of us is old now, huh?
“Don’t mar your pretty face with that frown, it makes you look old.”
Steve chuckled as something undid itself in his chest, the tension draining from both shoulders and face alike. He managed a flattered smile, feeling Bucky’s gentle caress over his cheek and asked, “Do I look that old?”
Bucky hummed, his gaze low at Steve’s lips. “You look as old as me, Brooklyn.”
“Really?” Steve asked softly. He watched as Bucky’s eyes flickered upwards, their gazes meeting for second before it trailed up and up, followed by his hand. Bucky ran it through Steve’s hair, fingers gently combing through the grey and blond, back down to the side and behind his ear and then back up to his face, warm palm resting against his cheek. His thumb ran over the sensitive skin beneath his eye, tracing the soft lines once. Twice.
“Yeah.” Bucky’s eyes glimmered and then he was up-close again, their lips brushing; his words nothing but a hot murmur. “But we still look damn good.”
In Steve’s lap, their son babbled in joy; a tiny hand brushing over their jaws as they kissed.